Of course Ubisoft bribed influencers. They flew them to their event and treated them to a wonderful weekend while showing them a 4-hour demo. Who is going to say anything bad under those conditions? Those who find it gross turn down the invitation altogether. This has been going on forever by every AAA developer I can think of. I unsubscribed from Act Man and Angry Joe for doing this and not being up front about it with Payday 3. At least the influencer in Mac's video admitted upfront that Ubisoft paid for their trip and took them to Disneyland.

Genshin offers a lot for free. And while there was some grind, it wasn't terrible and didn't feel exploitative. One month when my daughter and I were playing,we each got an accelerator pack for $10 each that basically doubled our progression. But it was hardly needed. My core characters were well on their way to maxxing out, and I hadn't even explored the entire map yet. I'd farmed a few of the bosses a few times, but not more than that. None of the map was off-limits, and the entire single player campaign is free. You can spend a lot of money if you really want to play the gacha mechanics a lot, or if you want to collect every single character offered. But it's hardly necessary to enjoy the game. I still got plenty of free gacha pulls, and have several tier 5 chars as a result, even though my fav is a tier 4.

I never would have tried this if dreyerdaughter hadn't invited me, but was really surprised at what was being "given" away. It never felt like they were hamstringing the game to force you to buy stuff. And the production values are quite excellent.

That said, watching a lot of these trailers, there's a saminess to all of them. If that's your wheelhouse, then you're stoked, but otherwise it's a narrow niche.